SEASON FOR GIVING
John Davis fashions a holiday arrangement as his sister Juanita Juneau looks on in a corner of his condo that’s been transformed into a workshop. Davis gives the decorations to care home residents, to provide them with “a bit of sunshine.”
John Davis gets a satisfied feeling in the pit of his stomach when he gives away one of his handcrafted wreaths, often to people who live in long-term care homes.
The 79-year-old Saskatoon resident has carved out a corner of his bedroom for a workspace.
Right now, the focus is on creating Christmas wreaths, each unified by a single colour as a theme. Small, cherubic animals are nestled into some. Others have a small, single-word banner conveying messages of “love” or “hope” or “peace” or “joy.”
“My goal is to provide a little bit of sunshine and happiness and joy for others, and that joy and happiness that I give comes back to me,” Davis says.
“It’s really rewarding to be able to see the smiles, the joy, the happiness in the faces of others.”
Davis doesn’t charge the recipients a penny. He is willing, however, to sell some of his wreaths and arrangements. It helps recoup the costs of his supplies.
A retired teacher who lived on his family’s farm near the village of Stenen for most of his life, Davis started creating wreaths in 2007, with no experience as a floral arranger.
A former student taught him how to arrange flowers.
He and his sister Juanita Juneau are the surviving siblings in their family. If something were to happen to Juneau, he would be alone and wouldn’t have immediate family in the city other than his niece and great nephews, he says.
“I very easily could end up in a long-term care facility or a special care home. If I didn’t have family to come in to support me, it would sure be quite significant if somebody brought me a gift, whether it be a gift of an arrangement — everything I do now would have its return,” he says.
Juneau is his mentor, he says. She says her one piece of advice to Davis is to think things over first, and she urges him not to retire from making wreaths.
He doesn’t plan to; he wants to continue making them for years to come.
The walls of Davis’s condo are decorated with them, including one with gold trim and branches topped with gold-flecked black roses, and one to honour the Humboldt Broncos, adorned with green flowers and the team’s logo. He says he will place that one in the condo’s lobby annually, around the anniversary of the April 6 tragedy.
Even more are kept in his living room — the ones he intends to give away this Christmas season, along with small arrangements.
When asked how many wreaths and arrangements he makes in a year, he simply says, “Let’s say that I make many.”
As he clicks through photos of his creations on a small camera, he relates an anecdote or a bit of detail about each, and it’s clear his creativity isn’t confined to one season. He has made other seasonally themed wreaths for care-home residents, for fall and Easter, for example.
That includes one he made for Juneau’s husband, which incorporated owls. His brother-in-law is staying at a Luther long-term care home — the same one as Wendy Drieger’s mother.
When Drieger noticed that Davis was creating wreaths and giving them to residents, she wanted to recognize his generosity and thank him. He offered to make one for her mother and asked what colour she’d like; she told him it was white.
Drieger said he delivered the wreath for her mother within a couple of days.
“That’s the spirit of the man — so generous,” said Drieger.